Nonprofit Marketing is a term that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense! Watch the video below to better understand the difference between public relations and marketing…and why your nonprofit needs to focus on PR!
Video Summary: Why Your Nonprofit Needs Public Relations
Public Relations focuses on building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their stakeholder groups. Marketing focuses on identifying human needs and wants, and then selling products or services that satisfy those needs and wants.
Nonprofits primary objective is not to sell products or services. This is why nonprofits need to be focused on PR, not marketing.
Because marketing is solely focused on customers, it is by nature a more narrow approach than public relations. PR is certainly concerned about customers, but it also considers employees, community partners, shareholders/investors, etc.
Now, I’ll admit that as the digital age continues and evolves, these fields will become even more intertwined and reliant upon each other. Which is why it’s good to stay up to date on both of thees fields.
What I like to do for my clients is use marketing tactics (social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, etc.) to serve larger public relations goals and campaigns. This approach works especially well for nonprofits and government entities. But even for businesses who are targeting customers, using a PR strategy is more comprehensive and will come across as less salesy.